PAC college financial sustainability report: The 7 recommendations

The Public Accounts Committee has set the Department for Education a list of tasks to address the “fragile” financial health of the further education sector.

Its report published today on ‘Managing colleges’ financial sustainability’, includes proposals on amending the college funding formula, how they pay VAT, and the expensive yet ineffective intervention regime.

As well as collecting evidence from the sector, the PAC grilled the Department for Education’s top civil servants on these issues in November following a National Audit Office inquiry into college finances.

Here are the seven recommendations from the PAC report.

1. DfE should make clear when it will commit funding for FE white paper reforms

The college sector has lacked a “proper, integrated vision for too long,” the report argues, saying the FE Commissioner-led area reviews in 2016 and 2017 were “successful to a degree, but significant strategic challenges remain”.

Last week, the government published its ‘Skills for Jobs’ white paper, which laid out plans for the further education sector up to 2030.

However, many in the sector have voiced their concerns they have only received a one-year funding settlement, rather than a multi-year one like schools have.

The committee has said the DfE “should make clear when it expects to set out funding commitments to support reforms proposed in the white paper”.

2. What is being done about pension cost pressure on colleges?

While the government provided additional funding to colleges to meet the costs of teacher pension contributions in 2019-20 and 2020-21, and recently announced it would extend support to 2021-22, the MPs report colleges “are worried about the affordability of contributions in future years”.

Colleges’ academic staff usually pay into the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, where employer contributions have risen from 14.1 per cent in 2015 to 23.68 per cent in 2019, an increase of 67.9 per cent.

A deficit in the Local Government Pension Scheme, which support staff use, has grown to £3.5 billion, according to the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

Colleges have had to make additional payments to cover the deficit, creating concerns about the potential impact of these extra payments on colleges, including otherwise financially healthy ones.

The DfE has been asked to write to the committee in three months, explaining what assessment it has made of pension cost pressures on colleges, and how this has been taken into account for funding decisions.

3. ‘Iniquitous’ sixth form colleges pay VAT while post-16 schools do not

There has been a long-standing issue where sixth form colleges must pay VAT, while sixth form academies and school sixth forms do not.

The Sixth Form Colleges Association told the committee the VAT requirement on colleges means they divert around 4 per cent of funding away from frontline provision, which equates to around £20 million a year across sixth form colleges.

The PAC reports 24 sixth form colleges have converted to academies by 2018-19, after the option was offered to them following the area reviews, and FE Week reported in 2019 converted colleges were saving as much as £250,000 by not having to pay VAT.

Today’s report calls the situation “clearly iniquitous,” but despite “frequent” discussions between the DfE and the Treasury on the issue, the department believes this “inconsistent treatment is not a priority” for the latter.

The PAC recommends the DfE push the Treasury to assess the merits of making the rules on VAT consistent for schools and colleges.

4. PAC wants reassurance on T Level industry placements

The committee has said it “remains concerned about the practicability of implementing the T Level programme,” as the colleges have said it has been “difficult” to secure the “crucial” industry placements students are required to complete for the course.

FE Week reported earlier this month colleges were having to suspend industry placements due to Covid-19 and the lockdown.

The MPs have requested another letter from the DfE, giving up-to-date assurance there will be enough placements for T Levels.

The letter should also say what impact the pandemic has had on the availability of placements, and what plans there are to use virtual placements – which are currently banned for T Levels.

5. An end to the lagged funding model

The DfE has been asked to consider changing the formula for funding colleges to take account of real-time, or at least more recent, information about student numbers.

Currently, funding decisions are based on colleges’ student numbers from previous years, and the Association of Colleges reported in November 2020 there were around 20,000 “unfunded” 16 to 18-year-old students in colleges this year.

The PAC reports learner numbers are expected to increase over the next few years, so has asked the DfE to report back to them by the summer on how funding could be delivered better reflecting colleges’ real-time situation.

The FE white paper has committed the government to simplify the FE funding system.

6. DfE needs to ‘improve’ its intervention arrangements

The government’s approach to intervention in colleges, led by the DfE, ESFA and FE Commissioner, “takes too long, costs too much and is not effective in making colleges more sustainable,” the report argues.

This comes after senior DfE and ESFA civil servants told the MPs last November that 64 colleges were at risk of running out of cash and that the insolvencies of the Hadlow Group of colleges were going to cost the taxpayer over £60 million.

In its report, the PAC highlights how the DfE spent £253 million on emergency funding for 36 colleges with cashflow problems between November 2014 and March 2019.

Dame Mary Ney’s review of college financial oversight, published in 2019 and commissioned after the Hadlow insolvencies, called for a “more proactive relationship with all colleges individually,” to “allow a stronger culture of prevention to be developed”.

And the DfE, as part of the white paper, has said it will “introduce new powers to intervene when colleges are failing to deliver good outcomes for the communities they serve”.

The PAC has given the department three months to outline how it will improve intervention, and also how it will assess the success of their plans.

7. Research whether college support services are meeting student needs

Students, the report says, are “losing out” on mental health and other support services, cut by colleges due to financial pressures.

The committee found as DfE funding for colleges fell by a fifth in real terms between 2013-14 and have cut back on activities to improve students’ experience, as well as welfare services like mental health support.

The DfE has accepted it needs to monitor this area, and the MPs have recommended a “firm commitment” to research the extent to which college support services are meeting student needs, which should get students’ input.

Reopening colleges and providers: Announcements coming ‘in next few days’

The government will make announcements on reopening education providers “in the next few days”, the schools minister has said.

However, Nick Gibb gave no indication of whether the upcoming announcements would include a firm date for schools, colleges and training providers to reopen, or details of any phased approach the government may take.

He also ducked repeated questions about what rate of hospitalisations, mortality, vaccination progress and spread of new variants would need to be seen across the country before education settings can be reopened.

Ministers have come under increasing pressure to reveal their plan for lifting restrictions on attendance implemented on January 5. Schools and colleges have been closed to all but the most vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers for three weeks.

Answering an urgent question on the matter from Labour today, Gibb repeated a pledge made by his boss Gavin Williamson last week to provide two weeks’ notice of reopenings to allow schools and colleges to prepare.

But he remained tight-lipped on what approach the government would take, with staggered returns being touted as potential options.

During the debate, Gibb acknowledged that both education staff and families “need time to prepare for reopening”, which was “why the secretary of state made it clear last week that we will give two weeks’ notice to schools, colleges and universities so that they can prepare for a return to face-to-face education”.

“We want to give two weeks’ notice so that parents can make arrangements for the care of their children, and we will be making announcements in the next few days.”

Gibb insisted that any decision to reopen schools and colleges would be based on four metrics – hospitalisation rates, mortality rates, the progress of the vaccination programme and the “challenge of the new variant”.

“Ultimately it was the pressure on the NHS that caused us to move into a national lockdown, and the government is monitoring NHS capacity carefully as it reviews whether easing lockdown might be possible,” he added.

However, he would not say what level each of those metrics must reach before schools and colleges reopen.

Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, criticised the government for failing to come up with a “credible plan”.

“The schools minister mentioned some metrics, but was was vague about the required performance against them. Can he give us some more clarity? Will schools only return if the R is below 1?”

Green also asked in what order pupils would return, whether exam students, primary children or pupils in certain regions would be prioritised first, and whether a “credible testing plan” would be in place.

But Gibb claimed there were “clear criteria” for emerging from the lockdown, referring to the metrics he mentioned earlier.

“We’ve always been clear that schools will be the last to close and the first to open as we emerge from the national lockdown.”

Five things you need to know about delivering T Levels

T Levels bring with them important new expectations of educators, says Zac Aldridge, NCFE’s operations director for technical education

 

It hardly needs stating that beginning to teach the first T Levels in this, of all years, poses challenges for providers.  If the position of T Levels in the senior leadership team’s league table of priorities had dropped during the last six-months, we’d understand why.  However, at NCFE, we’ve seen no decrease in appetite from providers to get T Levels right.  We’re delighted with this; T Levels are important. 

The first few thousand students who enrolled on a T Level at the start of this term expect providers to get T Levels right first time.  The many hundreds of employers that awarding organisations like NCFE engaged with to write, review and validate T Levels expect to recruit students with enhanced technical skills and knowledge.  There’s therefore a lot riding on the quality of T Level teaching.  From our development work with industry representatives, we’d encourage colleagues with responsibility for teaching and learning to think about the following things:

 

The first T Level students are pioneers

When something new comes along, it’s often easy to rein yourself in for fear of getting it wrong.  Over the next few years, as teaching staff get more familiar with the methods of assessment for T Levels, they’ll take more risks with their delivery.  They’ll try something different that might just stretch students enough to get them the distinction grade they’re on the cusp of achieving; they’ll trust themselves more to be able to pull it back if those risks don’t quite pay off.  Current students deserve those chances, too.  Therefore, make taking a risk less risky; lower the stakes.  On your T Level provision, use peer observation rather than a formal approach; allow T Level teachers to observe and coach each other; allocate them time to develop a project-based improvement activity aligned to the T Level assessment strategy.  Pioneering students learn best from trusted, pioneering teachers.

 

Industry Placements: not just for students

A great CPD programme allows time for teachers to go back into industry and update their skills and knowledge every year.  T Levels were written by employers and providers need to keep up.  The ETF’s Industry Insights programme will fund this for you, but even without discrete funding, industry placements for teachers are essential to high quality T Level teaching.  If your T Level students are all on placement at the same time, why not get teachers to join them?  The contemporaneous assessment opportunities this will provide doubles the benefits.

 

Contextualise maths and English

We know the entry requirements for T Levels will be high – the content is new and challenging, and good GCSE passes are tempting minimum thresholds.  Remember, though, that the condition of funding does not apply to T Levels.  In this context, your T Level Transition Programmes become key drivers for imparting maths, English and digital skills in ways that prepare students not only to pass GCSEs, but to support their T Level occupational specialism.  Talk to employers about industry-relevant content, speak to your AO about the support they can offer, and don’t forget that Functional Skills may allow you more scope to directly target T Level preparedness than GCSEs.

 

Introduce mentors

HE institutions and employers will expect T Level students to assimilate as well as any other student or employee.  The Industry Placement and rigour with which assessment is applied to T Levels will certainly support the transition.  Many HE institutions and employers offer the opportunity for students to be mentored – we think this will be invaluable for early T Level cohorts and can help to link you with the right people.  A mentor to support with the general experience of university or working life is useful.  Even better is a mentor who can embed the connections between your T Level teaching and a future potential HE course or technical job. 

 

Formative assessment scaffolds the summative

Providers have no past cohorts of T Level students to learn from this year.  Couple this with grappling to introduce the dramatic and necessary increase in blended learning, and measuring the progress of your T Level students against untested assessment criteria becomes a huge challenge.  You should take as many opportunities as possible to formatively assess your students – and use employers to help.  Ask them to set industry-relevant assessments that embed learning; ask them to interview your students – remotely – about their T Level content; set up employer panels to which your T Level students present termly progress.  All of these activities will complement formal, summative assessment and enhance learning.

T Levels represent a considered, fundamental change to the post-16 education system, a chance for students who take an applied, vocational pathway to secure genuine parity of esteem with their academic peers.  We’d be delighted to work with you on what we know is a shared determination to deliver outstanding T Levels.

 

Focus: Animal care college courses during Covid

Students and staff let the cat out of the bag on one of the most specialist courses in further education  ̶ animal care in land-based colleges 

“Animals don’t care about lockdown, you know? They still need feeding, cleaning out, mucking out, looking after. That pressure hasn’t changed. We’re just glad the students can still come along to help us out.” Helen Martin, land-based curriculum manager at Bishop Burton College in east Yorkshire, is one of the lucky ones. Her specialist site, to which learners travel miles and miles from across the north, is so remote it has space for 100 resident students. All bored of remote learning, they regularly emerge from their rooms in masks and protective equipment when emailed to help with livestock on site.

But for most colleges delivering “land-based courses” – a term used to describe a whole array of qualifications in animal care, animal management and agriculture – the challenges of the pandemic have been unique even for the further education sector. And most staff have had to fend for themselves. 

Students in socially distanced equine lessons at Askham Bryan College

Take Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire College. Animal care unit manager Rebecca Walker oversees no fewer than 400 animals, covering 74 species, each one with its own enclosure requirements, feeding timetables, clean-out regimes and “enrichment” activities (which, as far as I can tell, means fun).

I ask for a quick list of the animals on site, and a David Attenborough programme wouldn’t cover it: boa constrictors, corn snakes, iguanas, crested geckos, tortoises, tarantulas, millipedes, cockroaches, turtles, toads, frogs, owls, buzzards, falcons, alpacas, goats, sheep, cockatoos, canaries, rheas (like ostriches, apparently), hamsters, chinchillas and gerbils. “And sadly our hedgehog passed away, so we’ll be getting a new hedgehog soon,” says Walker. “Oh, and monkeys.”  

It must be one of the most high-stakes logistics FE tasks around. “We were seeing animals in other places around us being rehomed or euthanised, because they weren’t open to the public so no tickets were being sold,” frowns Walker. Ferrets have had to be particularly well-protected, she tells me, because, just like the mink culled in their thousands at farms across Denmark, they are susceptible to coronavirus.

We were seeing animals in other places around us being rehomed or euthanised

Death is not good for business; land-based colleges are often not just places of learning but tend to have commercial operations running on site as well. So it was all the more worrying that just as income was dropping off, food became very difficult to get hold of too. “We were trying to get our food and they were saying they couldn’t get it in, which was not good. The specialist and exotic food was especially difficult.” When the food finally came back on the market, the college bulk-bought just to make sure animals had enough to get through the winter.  

Moving sheep at Oaklands College

Usually, Walker and course leaders like her would have tens of learners on hand to help her team out amid such challenges. But unless there are residential placements, all these students have had to return home. “We’ve gone from having 120 students in a week helping us look after the animals to literally a team of just four of us. It’s been hard.”

The staff worked through the entire summer without a break, she tells me. “When there’s only a handful of you, to make sure the animals are safe, you just can’t take the time off. I feel so grateful to the staff, their commitment has been unbelievable.”

Charlotte Pugh, a former student now employed as an animal technician at the college, said when students were allowed back in between lockdowns they tackled the animal feed shortage by planting many fruit and vegetable seeds in the college’s huge greenhouse on site. “I think the hardest thing has been not having the students. We didn’t realise how much we relied on them and how much freedom they usually have on the unit to help out.” 

Meerkats at Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire College

Land-based colleges are a deeply specialised part of the further education sector, with only about 15 scattered across the country. Without them, learners wouldn’t be leaving with level 1, 2 and 3 qualifications and extended diplomas to move on to workplaces that include conservation centres, wildlife parks, equine training centres and zoos, as well as on to various higher education qualifications, such as zoology and marine biology.  

The practical element of the course is particularly important, given that handling a large bull, pregnant ewe or – rather you than me – a tarantula inexpertly comes with no minor consequences. Some of the solutions dreamt up by lecturers are model lessons in not only fulfilling the practical experience assessment component, but also how to keep flagging students onboard. 

At Brooksby Melton College in Leicestershire, which has about 290 animals, learners needed to demonstrate they could pick up an invertebrate (an insect) around the right part of the thorax (body) for internal teacher assessments that go towards their final grade. While some assessments can be done on students’ own pet if they have them, not many people have a giant spiny stick insect from Papua New Guinea.

Lydia Bradwell, curriculum coordinator for animal management, explains that learners made life-like replicas from Blu Tac and cocktail sticks, and were then assessed on their correct handling via video link. Students have even, extraordinarily, been assessed on correct bandaging techniques using stuffed toys, as long as the proportions are similar to real life animals. “We need that evidence, and this is one way of getting around the problem,” she hoots. 

Doing things in miniature is also proving a popular learning route. Bradwell asked her students to set up a complete enclosure in a Tupperware box with all the correct elements, space, feed and proportions clearly labelled. A similar solution was proposed at Barnsley College near Leeds, where Charlotte Bantock, animal management course leader asked learners to design a zoo. “We looked at zoo maps and they had to answer questions such as, how has this zoo been designed and why? Why is that animal near that one, because they have similar requirements, are they are from the same continent, or for the visitor experience? Then they created their own zoos.” 

But it’s not quite the same, and learners and staff are well aware of it. Back at Bishop Burton College, twins Charles and Will Smith, and friend Jack Fray, do lessons in livestock husbandry that features skills that are hard to pick up without hands-on learning. “If we were checking the sheep, for example, we would learn how to put them in the turnover crate, look at their teeth and feet and do a full check, make sure there’s no damage or disease,” says Fray. “It’s a skill in itself using the turnover crate, and you’re not learning that online, you’re looking at a picture of what could be wrong with your sheep. It’s a very different thing.”

You’re looking at a picture of what could be wrong with your sheep. It’s a very different thing.

Will chips in with a business-like stoicism. “The only good thing about Covid is the price of meat and countryside game has gone up.” So there are financial upsides to looking after livestock during Covid – but it’s a poor return for young people who like the outdoors. 

Helen Wiffen, curriculum leader in animal management at Capel Manor College in London, is realistic about what the pandemic means for students. “I think it’s going to be really difficult for them to have the skills they normally would. We’re just trying to prioritise practicals as much as we can, whenever we can.”

Students under her care were tasked with creating individual projects such as setting wildlife camera traps. “They’ve seen a huge range of animals on there, foxes and all kinds of birds!” Video links inside veterinary surgeries have allowed students to ask questions, which can both contribute to work experience units as well as help students demonstrate competence in behaviour observation, a core component of animal care.

A fox on the wildlife camera traps at Capel Manor College

Keeping an eye on the animals is reaching Big Brother levels at Oaklands College in Hertfordshire, where a live video feed is currently being installed in the lambing barn. Colin Elcombe, the livestock manager, acknowledges that getting students the required skills has been “obviously very difficult” but that other technology, such as GoPros, should help students watch lecturers carry out tasks in real time. “With the lambs, students can log in any time, 24 hours a day, to check for signs of lambing,” he explains. “Then, if they see anything, they can engage with me and I’ll go rushing up there.”

It’s a bit like a high-intensity Spring Watch. Jay Jay Johnson, who is studying a level 3 technical diploma in animal management at Oaklands, puts a brave face on the situation. “What’s been difficult for me is we got really used to working with the animals and being independent with them. Now we’re not really doing practicals, and we can’t act independently with them.” He adds, a little sadly, “At the minute, we’re not seeing the animals at all.” 

East Durham College in the north east shows the vast grounds and facilities of many animal care units

Purposeful work and animals have both been proven to be of great benefit to mental health  ̶  so to have both removed at once must be quite tough for learners. The level of passion for animal care is infectious, however, and I find myself becoming quite excited as they send me pictures of tiny hedgehogs being weighed and foxes caught on camera at midnight. It seems there’s little risk of these students not returning to the courses again.  

But staff have worked flat out and could do with some recognition from those on high. Walker reflects as we end our Zoom. “You know, on the news there’s even mention of vets and zookeepers, but we do get bypassed. For all of us, this has been one of the hardest years ever. I hope people find out what we do now.” 

Sector gives FE white paper the thumbs up

The FE white paper has been given a warm welcome by sector leaders and FE Week readers, with almost two thirds rating it as ‘good’.

FE Week today ran a webcast in partnership with NCFE exploring the much-anticipated ‘Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth’ document, which was published last Thursday.

The white paper included more than 30 proposals and while the majority repeat or build on current reforms, there were some new announcements including ‘Local Skills Improvement Plans’ and greater intervention powers for the education secretary.

During today’s webcast, a panel of sector leaders gave their views on the white paper and were asked to rate it out of ten, while the watching audience was also asked whether they thought the white paper was ‘amazing’, ‘good’, ‘fair’, ‘poor’, or ‘awful’.

Around 700 of the 1,150 audience members voted with 64 per cent saying it was ‘good’, 34 per cent saying it was ‘fair’, one per cent saying it was ‘amazing’ and the same amount saying it was ‘poor’.

As for the sector leaders, Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes rated the white paper as an eight out of ten.

Hughes explained his score, saying: “I think there’s a lot of opportunity in it.

“I don’t think it’s perfect, it does not cover everything. There’s lots of areas for development, but there’s a commitment to do that work with us.”

Policy director for adult education network HOLEX Susan Pember said she would have given the white paper a score of six out of ten on Friday. Yet she had had a rethink, saying during her presentation that “there are some brilliant things in there,” and ended up giving it a nine – the highest score of all the panellists.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers managing director Jane Hickie gave an eight and a half score on behalf of her members.

She lamented the “noticeable absence” of a strategy for level 2 and below in the white paper, saying: “We need to provide people with an opportunity from the bottom up.”

But Hickie said it was a “really good thing” the white paper said the government would take ‘tougher’ formal action against schools which do not comply with the Baker Clause, which mandates schools to allow FE and skills providers talk to pupils about potential study routes.

David Russell, chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation, rated it as an eight out of ten and said that was a “really good” rating for a government white paper.

As FE Week editor Nick Linford, who hosted the webcast, pointed out: Hughes, Pember and Russell have all worked in Whitehall during their careers, overseeing multiple reform attempts, so their high scores for this latest white paper were “quite tremendous”.

NCFE chief executive David Gallagher would not be drawn on a numbered score, joking that his awarding body “will apply an algorithm and get back to you”.

Pushed by Linford for a score, Gallagher said he “never likes to fall into the trap” of rating out of ten, but did say: “The constraints we’ve got means we haven’t got a landmark paper.”

The devil’s in the detail with these things

A number of panellists spoke about how the white paper appears to have been restrained by having a one-year, rather than a multi-year, funding settlement.

Skills minister Gillian Keegan told FE Week in an interview last week: “Obviously having a three-year settlement is great because it gives visibility, it gives that long-term money,” but she claimed the one-year settlement had not hampered the white paper’s speed or boldness.

Today, Gallagher did credit the document for “making sense,” and for there being “nothing any of us are wildly opposing”.

“But the devil’s in the detail with these things, so I would be slightly less generous than colleagues based on those concerns but not massively so,” he added.

DWP Kickstart gateway firms approved by algorithm, with no trading history or based abroad

[UPDATE: Five days after publication of this article, the DWP got in touch to say that they use human checks as well as their algorithm in the gateway approval process.]

 

An FE Week investigation has found dozens of companies selected by the Department for Work and Pensions to become “Kickstart gateways” with little to no trading history or based outside of the UK.

The DWP has issued more than 600 approved firms a per job placement fee of £300, plus up to a further £1,500 for every 16 to 24-year-old on Universal Credit they put through the new £2 billion wage-subsidised employment programme.

FE Week’s  findings have raised serious concern over the “automated due diligence checks” used by the DWP as part of a contract selection process using a new “Cabinet Office Spotlight Tool”.

Small employers have to use ‘gateway’ companies (which include colleges, chambers of commerce and hundreds of private companies) where they have less than 30 vacancies according to DWP policy.

The DWP is understood to be so concerned about the quality of gateway providers that they have now stopped taking applications and scrapped the requirement for small employers to use them from 3 February.

FE Week has shared its findings with the relevant government departments.

Examples of gateway firms shared with the Treasury and DWP  include Kickstart Jobs Ltd, which according to companies house was incorporated just three months ago.

Another, KA001 Limited, lists a gmail contact email address on the gov.uk Kickstart website and their first set of accounts filed in November 2020 shows “total assets less liabilities” of £100.

FE Week also shared the example of Casual Speakers Ltd, a DWP authorised Kickstart gateway firm which Companies House lists as being based in Tel-Aviv, Israel and therefore has not filed accounts in the UK.

A DWP spokesperson replied to questions about how these firms were selected by saying: “Kickstart gateways are subject to stringent checks.”

Responding to our findings, shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonny Reynolds, said: “Billions of pounds of public money is being poured into Kickstart and we must ensure it is being spent well to create meaningful job opportunities for young people. Young people and businesses can’t afford any more incompetence from this government.”

A college manager that runs a Kickstart gateway in partnership with a local chamber of commerce, who did not want to be named, said: “It beggars belief that the DWP would agree that companies with little or no recent trading history or which were only set up in the weeks and months ahead of opening up the gateway application process were allowed into the process.

“We need urgent action to resolve this.”

According to the official Kickstart gateway website, the “DWP has checked the organisations listed in this service using the Cabinet Office Spotlight Tool”.

The same webpage links through to another government site which states: “The Spotlight is a new tool to improve the management of grant applications. It has been purpose built by the Cabinet Office.

“Spotlight saves time by performing automated due diligence checks on each application. These complicated checks, which used to take hours, are now done in seconds. Spotlight checks large amounts of data to highlight areas for further investigation. Risks are emphasised to help grant administrators make better funding decisions.”

The site continues: “Spotlight saves time, improves decision making, and reduces the risk of fraud. Spotlight is available across all government and public length bodies.”

FE Week also found many companies advertising themselves as being a Kickstart gateway with no history of job matching.

Firms advertising their Kickstart gateway services include Banana Scoops Ltd, an ice cream supplier to Ocado which claimed on Twitter to have 70 placements already approved with DWP.  Another encouraging applications from small employers is Rollerworld Limited, a company with an ice rink in Essex.

FE Week also showed DWP the website www.kickstartschemegateway.co.uk, which could be mistaken for being government owned.

A spokesperson for DWP said: “Employers should find their gateway through the approved gov.uk page.”

And despite there being no training requirement for Kickstart, when asked about some gateway providers keeping the £1,500 the DWP spokesperson said: “Where Kickstart gateways provide some or all of the training they retain an agreed portion of the £1,500 support and training funding.”

The DWP website states: “Every job placement created gets £1,500 funding. This will be paid to you and you will need to pay this to the employer.”

Government Kickstart minimum vacancy rule to be scrapped, hitting hundreds of ‘gateway’ providers

The chancellor is to scrap the minimum 30 vacancy requirement for the government’s Kickstart scheme, scuppering the plans of organisations that had become so-called “gateways” to help smaller employers access the programme.

FE Week understands that some organisations have been told by ministers that the vacancy limit will be scrapped, meaning any business will be able to directly access the Department for Work and Pensions scheme without the need of Kickstart gateways.

Hundreds of organisations successfully registered to become gateway providers and include colleges, local chambers of commerce and private training providers.

They will still be able to operate across the UK but there will be little incentive for employers to use them.

The Kickstart scheme, announced by chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak in his summer statement in July, offers a six-month work placement to 16 to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long-term unemployment– with the government picking up their wage bill.

Currently, employers have to be able to offer a minimum of 30 placements to be allowed to apply for the scheme. Those which cannot have to apply to join through a Kickstart gateway provider.

For each placement, gateway providers receive £300 to support administrative costs, while employers are supposed to receive £1,500 per placement for help with setup costs.

However, FE Week understands the Treasury is concerned about the revelation that some gateway providers have been taking the full £1,800.

This newspaper raised concerns about this approach with the DWP in October, but was told that although the £1,500 had to be spent on start-up and support for the young person, gateway providers and employers were free to come to “suitable arrangements” on how that support would be provided, including models where all the support was provided by the gateway.

One gateway provider to have adopted this approach is a partnership between the Federation of Small Businesses and Adecco Working Ventures, which was celebrated at the time of its launch in September by the work and pensions secretary Thérèse Coffey.

The FSB said last year that as part of the scheme, Adecco Working Ventures would “ensure quality of support throughout the process and advise on those valuable next steps of re-entering paid, full time employment”, with the £1,500 government grant going “to provide this comprehensive wrap-around support”. The FSB then received the £300 gateway payment.

Adecco Working Ventures was launched in July as a joint venture between the Adecco Group UK and vocational training provide Corndel. In November, it was revealed that private equity firm THI Investments would acquire Corndel for more than £40 million.

News reports at the time said it was expecting “an additional £30 million of sales” to come from its partnership with Adecco.

It is understood the move to scrap the minimum jobs requirement has prompted fury in the further education and skills sector, after training providers scrambled to become gateway providers to support the scheme last year.

Providers are also said to be angry about the way the announcement has been handled, coming just days after the government’s skills for jobs white paper pledged a greater role for employers’ groups such as chambers of commerce.

Announcing the vacancy rule change, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Thérèse Coffey said: “Kickstart has moved up a gear and I encourage employers to join us and invest in the next generation of talent by joining our Kickstart scheme.

“By removing the threshold of a minimum 30 jobs for direct applications, we are making it even simpler to get involved.

“Now is the time to prepare for post-lockdown placements and employers will now have a choice to apply direct or through one of our 600 fantastic Kickstart gateways who may be locally connected or sector-specific providing that tailored support.”

Ofqual’s criticism of the government’s T Level plans gives me hope

The regulator agrees with many principals like me that the T Level reforms have serious flaws, writes Neil Patterson 

Reading Ofqual’s response to the government’s consultation over post-16 qualifications gives me hope. It echoes opinions that have been shared by many I know since the intended reforms were announced.

I was part of the original panel at the Department for Education for some of the engineering T Levels. In our first meeting I remember a DfE “suit” saying that he was there to “make sure the panel didn’t subvert DfE policy direction”.

Just over a year later I resigned from the panel because it was clear he meant it.

My concerns about work placements, the size of the qualification, the impact on the disadvantaged and the bifurcation into purely academic or purely vocational were clearly not as important as getting this flagship sailing before it had been leak-tested.

As an engineer, I know that engineering is not just an academic subject, but nor is it just vocational. To split it in two at age 16 is in my view too early.

It’s a view that is backed up by the choices our students make in our sixth form, too. Just over half of last year’s leavers had studied a blend of A-levels and vocational and technical qualifications.

Even for those going on to university, only eight per cent had come through a purely academic route, while 58 per cent did a blend of A-levels with vocational and technical qualifications. The remaining third followed a purely vocational route.

To split the subject in two at age 16 is in my view too early

Switching off these smaller qualifications and offering only T Levels is cutting off a route for a great number of talented young people.

My student whose creativity was ultimately unleashed on his product design A-level may not have been quite so attractive to the F1 team that snapped him up.  

The girl who studied maths alongside engineering avoided the need for a foundation year at university, which meant she could get earning sooner.  

The young man who bagged a degree apprenticeship with Aston Martin was more marketable because of his knowledge acquired on the physics and maths A-level courses, which illuminated his learning in the BTEC Diploma in Engineering. 

They and many like them have gone on to great things because of the combination of qualifications available now.

To do away with them, and in their place put a large, inflexible, high-stakes T Level would be a mistake.  

Furthermore, the T-Levels won’t suit a lot of the students who would normally take a BTEC Extended Diploma, equivalent in size to three A-levels, and an option favoured disproportionately by those with protected characteristics and disadvantaged young people.

This picture is seen across the UTC network.

 In a study by the Baker Dearing Educational Trust of last year’s leavers, they found that the proposals in the post-16 qualifications review would meet the learning and progression needs of just 60 per cent of UTC students.

Forcing more young people on to courses that aren’t right for them will lead to lower completion rates and more NEETs, particularly among the disadvantaged, who face additional barriers to attending the extended work placements that are part of the T Levels.

When I talk to the employers in our region, particularly in the high-performance technology sector, they speak of the struggle to recruit young people with higher-level technical skills.  

The Augar report into post-18 education concluded that “England needs a stronger technical and vocational education system at sub-degree levels”.  

Under the current proposals, I am concerned that it will lead to a divergence of final qualification levels, with even fewer attaining qualifications at levels 4 and 5 – take-up of which is already low here compared with other countries.

I welcome the process of removing the dead wood from the qualifications landscape.

But the binary proposals don’t recognise the great synergy in pairing academic and vocational qualifications in engineering at level 3, and how that fits with the needs of businesses whose productivity and growth is slowed because of a shortage of skilled workers.

When I wear traditional Indian dress, people still react differently

In this third lockdown, we mustn’t forget the conversation around racism and diversity, writes Anita Lall

“Women don’t do science”. “Asian girls don’t go to university”.  

These are just a handful of the phrases that I often heard growing up from my school and college teachers.  

The comments continued whilst at university from members of my community and sadly some university tutors.  

Despite such comments, my passion was science and fully supported by my parents, I pursued this as my first career. I always thought back to those comments and what I could do to stop this happening to other young women.   

Now that we are into a third lockdown, the huge international conversations around racism and diversity from the summer risk being forgotten if we don’t stay focused. 

For me, teaching in further education has provided the ideal opportunity to challenge stereotypes and serve as a positive role model for young women in science. 

These comments still persist in our society decades later, which is why we mustn’t take our eye off the ball. Many of my BAME female vocational science students still report being told that science as a career is not for them.  

Such stereotypes, however, are not purely seen in science. Young men are often discouraged from pursuing childcare and nursing qualifications. 

Times are starting to change with BAME students in FE increasing from 19 per cent to 23 per cent in the space of eight years. But Black and Asian representation in senior leadership has consistently decreased from 2012 to 2019.  

Fifteen per cent of FE staff identify as BAME, which drops to nine per cent for senior managers.  This is something that we must actively address. Many colleges deliver learning in local communities and within faith institutions ̶ but how many proactively recruit staff from that community? 

It is not enough to just challenge the stereotypes ̶ the barriers need to be broken down and senior leaders need to act.  

Those working in all ranks of FE have a positive duty to break down the stereotypes and challenges that BAME students face and encourage them to seek opportunities in further education in the sectors from which they are traditionally put off.  

Assumptions held by both staff and students need to be broken, and colleges should have high aspirations for all their students. 

Imagery is a powerful tool

I can remember wearing traditional Indian dress to a college event a few years ago and colleagues walking past me didn’t recognise me. In wider society, I am talked to differently if I wear Indian dress.  

Think about how you unconsciously perceive students who wear traditional dress to college and the assumptions you make. 

Imagery is a powerful tool. Colleges need to ensure their marketing is fully inclusive and positively portrays men and women from ethnic minorities across a variety of courses.   

At my college, this is something that we are continually working on. I am all too aware of the strong positive impression BAME teachers and senior leaders have on parents from ethnic minorities at open days and other events.  

To see minority groups visibly represented within the workforce and especially at a senior level sends a powerful message to students. 

As the visible BAME leader at my college, I am acutely conscious of this and the positive impact that I can have. 

At the end of the day, we must continually affect less biased, more equitable and lasting behaviour change.  

Our senior leadership team is small but diverse and this means that decisions are well tested and considered. 

So what can you do to address some of these issues?  

Invite people in your college to share how they have observed or experienced inequity and bias, and empower them to be part of the solution.  

Enlist enthusiastic staff (and students) who want to actively participate in being part of a change, and equip them to do so.  

Actively address the systems that inhibit equality, diversity and inclusivity in your college one at a time.

It’s never too late to start.